(Sorry, non-Arabic speakers: I only understand enough to be inspired, not enough to translate.) For context, Al-Jazeera has done a story on how the revolution essentially started among the workers in Mahalla (and this is the English version):
This is what it looked and sounded like in Tunis:
(Note the pictures of Stalin brandished by what must be the Communist Workers Party of Tunisia (PCOT). There is a woman identified as belonging to a "Socialist Workers Party"--don't know if this is a new grouping that I hadn't previously heard of, or a mistranslation of the PCOT's name.)
And in Casablanca, Morocco, it's a bit rainy, but loud:
Apparently, in the Maldives (a small island nation in the Indian Ocean), it is day two of some volatile protests over skyrocketing commodity prices:
In Kenya, the Trade Unions are calling for 60% wage increases, and a general strike in 20 days:
In Hong Kong, the focus is also on the minimum wage:
In New York, I attended the Union Square May Day demonstration, with various immigrant workers' groups and dominated, from the podium, by the constellation around the Workers World Party, not the rival Foley Square demonstration with official union support. Left groups that were also visibly present at the one I attended (in order of my seeing them):
- Internationalist Group (hard to miss, with a huge banner, a decent-sized contingent, and several placards)
- Anakbayan
- League for the Revolutionary Party
- Revolutionary Communist Party
- Spartacist League
- Socialist Alternative
- Freedom Socialist Party
- Socialist Party
- International Socialist Organization
- Socialist Core (new U.S. franchise of the LIT, focused around the PSTU of Brasil)
- Bolshevik Tendency (after a hiatus, they're once again active in New York)
- Kasama Project (known only because I asked one of their supporters if he could spare a red flag, and he said they were for his contingent, so I asked "which contingent?")
- Freedom Road Socialist Organization / OSCL (that one, not the other one, with a rare banner to identify themselves)
- MIUCA - El Acción por el Cambio (Dominican left group that had decent chants and better drumming)
Since the purpose of this blog is not Leftist Trainspotting, I will note a conversation of political significance: The BTer I spoke with, to his credit, pressed me for a quick summation of why I'm no longer with the LRP. It's not a bad thing to be able to sum such things up in one or two sentences. It was only after we ended our conversation that a summation, however, occurred to me: That much of the left, LRP included, treats the question of political organization in a religious manner, not a scientific one, and does what it does on the basis of varied understandings of a tradition of choice.
A realization I had, ironically enough, on the closest day a Marxist materialist has to the High Holidays. Elaborations on this to come.
Work and family obligations have disrupted my self-imposed weekly schedule for the installments of the Badiou critique. Moreover, I am going to read the literature I picked up today, and to the extent that there is anything worth commenting upon, will likely do so. This will likely prevent me from posting more reading notes on Mészáros any time soon, either. And I will be at the Historical Materialism conference next weekend. Apologies in advance.
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